


Katherines

by Nattlys



Series: The Thoughts and Thinkings of Nightlights [2]
Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, I guess it could be taken romantically if you squint, In which Nightlight forgets Time is Usually Linear, Multiverse Theory, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-25 19:19:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13219488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nattlys/pseuds/Nattlys
Summary: Sometimes he misses her.





	Katherines

In my times I have known– have held, loved, doted on, cared for, and other things– an abundance of Katherines.

They have not always gone by Katherine. Sometimes they prefer ‘Kat’, or 'Katie’. Others are Catherines (or Kathryn or Cathy or Kitty or…). There was a Kristofer, once, even.

But the best ones are always simply Katherine, and if I had to admit to loving some more than others, it would always be my Katherines.

(As I have said before, I am possessive by nature, nurture, and necessity. No, I will not change this.)

There are three requirements to be a Katherine, beyond being known as some form of Katherine:

  1. A love of books. Words. Plays. Literary things of all sorts.
  2. Wild brown curls that refuse to be tamed, even by the strongest hair pins and products.
  3. Birds.



Sometimes they have speckles across their shoulders and chests and noses and they sit, patient, as I try to count them (I cannot count higher than 16, and lose track often). Sometimes the curls are dense and tight and thick, and are close to the head, and I can press my nose into them and be hidden entirely in spices and oil and the smell of dried ink. Sometimes the curls are loose, and coil freely around shoulders, snagging fingers and keeping secret kisses out of reach. Sometimes the books are not books at all– they are pages and pages of drawings, or gigantic canvases splashed with every kind of paint imaginable, or sometimes they are sung or shouted or screamed words that wrap my heart and make me glow bright, brighter, brightest.

A Katherine may not always be my Katherine– I have met once a Katherine who was already fully-grown to a Tall One, who had lost or somehow abandoned her proper Nightlight at one place or another, and when she spotted me in the garden with her youngest daughter, who was called 'little bird’ with the most affection, she went white as a sheet and chased me away with a frying iron.

(I crept back, later, when the Moon was above, and she had remained there at the gate all evening, and when I asked why she screamed at me she said 'you aren’t real’ and that hurt more than anything, and so I can only imagine what must have happened to convince her so thoroughly that I were only stories. A man who could have been the Tall William but all grown came down the pathway then, and, unable to see me, gathered this Katherine into his arms in fear she had taken a chill and told her to come to bed. I left, then, because sometimes you have a deep-inside knowing when you can do nothing else.)

My very first Katherine is, to this day, still the only one I have told that I loved her. She was shortish, and thick where I was narrow, and she was the central anchor around which we all gravitated and revolved; she was always clever and very, very careful with everything except for herself. She was Ombric’s daughter, who raised a goose by hand, and darned our North’s clothes for him when they ripped, and had the best stories, and wore daffodil-yellow even on the days when it was raining. I would always come to lay beside her after my patrol, to hold her close and let her tell me all the things she was thinking about, wanted to think about, and wished she could remember. She gave me a bracelet made of ribbons and a long, long, long strand of her hair, and I have not seen her since, though I miss her very much.

She is why I began my quiet quest of Katherines, long before I understood that the humans were too stupid to come up with different names for everyone, and that there would be a very very great many Katherines beyond just my own.

I content myself with my lot.

The last Katherine I have met is a 'Kate’, who says she was named for her Gramma Kathy, who was also, probably, a Katherine. She is five years old but speaks as if she is a Tall One already, and when I knelt to return the shoe she lost splashing in the pond while looking for ducklings, she asked if I was an alien (yes), if I was going to eat her (no), and for my scientific name, all in one breath like she couldn’t get the words out fast enough. Upon informing her I did not have a name but she could call me what she liked, she beamed and decided I was Nightlight.

I am _always_ Nightlight.

**Author's Note:**

> Directly inspired by how many Katherine roleplayers I've written with who have, in the end, left or disappeared.


End file.
